Where is the spine of the team?

Ixion said:
Well he has saved us in more matches than anyone else and been our best player so that counts as deserving in my book
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We're talking about the spine of the team in here, not whether a goalie has made a couple of saves and deserves the captain's armband (which he doesn't, by the way).
 
The strange thing is that 4-2-2-2 is practically all spine. It’s 73% spine.
 
McGrathsipan said:
Great teams are usually built around a spine of a quality goal keeper, good centre backs, consistently good central midfield and a quality striker.
These are the players that the team is built around. Their quality will mean that you can afford one or two flair/luxury players that add that extra layer.
One of these players is usually the leader - driving things on the field and being that rock making sure that he and his team-mates will do the hard yards for each other.

Outside the keeper we have none of that. We have no leader, we have no consistently good players, to me it looks like we have nobody thats willing to put it on the line for their team mates.

Our so called elite players

Bruno is horrendous for a long time now - does nothing but whine.
Rashford is dreadful
Greenwood seems off.
Sancho seems off.
Fred is a worker but he just isnt an elite player
Maguire is bang average
Shaw is incredibly limited
WanBissaka is not an elite player
MC T isnt elite
Pogba - a fecking chancer and a show-pony. No interest in his team
Martial - passenger
Ronaldo - over the hill
Varane - the jury is still out. He is a quality player but we havent seen it yet


Until we can get a team with a spine of quality and grit then we are at nothing. It doesnt surprise me at all that we are still shite.
a good few of these players need to be shown the door
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Well Rashford, Greenwood, Sancho, Martial, Shaw and Wan Bissaka are wide players and most of them also don't start so...not sure what that's got to do with the spine of your team. I think basically this is just a new take on "McFred are shit and I'm annoyed at Maguire and Bruno"?
 
TwoSheds said:
Well Rashford, Greenwood, Sancho, Martial, Shaw and Wan Bissaka are wide players and most of them also don't start so...not sure what that's got to do with the spine of your team. I think basically this is just a new take on "McFred are shit and I'm annoyed at Maguire and Bruno"?
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No its a take on we don't have a settled spine in the team. The CB pairing isn't good enough and we've no midfield or consistently reliable forward options. Wide or not.
 
Daydreamer said:
The strange thing is that 4-2-2-2 is practically all spine. It’s 73% spine.
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82% including the Keeper as the OP did.

It seems like Ragnick has decided on a formation and will crowbar his players into it rather than assessing the strengths and weaknesses of his squad and crafting a system to suit it.

That’s not necessarily bad, Guardiola pretty much does that. But he had a five year contract and a transfer budget to match his reputation. Ragnick has six months and a single January transfer window. It seems very risky.
 
We're just playing poorly and very few (if any) of our players are playing well. A decent run of results and the narrative would change.

The majority of the team are internationals and are regulars for their country, we're hoping for a quick fix and for our players to recover their form, it'll come (hopefully).
 
McGrathsipan said:
Great teams are usually built around a spine of a quality goal keeper, good centre backs, consistently good central midfield and a quality striker.
These are the players that the team is built around. Their quality will mean that you can afford one or two flair/luxury players that add that extra layer.
One of these players is usually the leader - driving things on the field and being that rock making sure that he and his team-mates will do the hard yards for each other.

Outside the keeper we have none of that. We have no leader, we have no consistently good players, to me it looks like we have nobody thats willing to put it on the line for their team mates.

Our so called elite players

Bruno is horrendous for a long time now - does nothing but whine.
Rashford is dreadful
Greenwood seems off.
Sancho seems off.
Fred is a worker but he just isnt an elite player
Maguire is bang average
Shaw is incredibly limited
WanBissaka is not an elite player
MC T isnt elite
Pogba - a fecking chancer and a show-pony. No interest in his team
Martial - passenger
Ronaldo - over the hill
Varane - the jury is still out. He is a quality player but we havent seen it yet


Until we can get a team with a spine of quality and grit then we are at nothing. It doesnt surprise me at all that we are still shite.
a good few of these players need to be shown the door
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The players in your list that were purchased total over half a billion in transfer cost.

Woe is me.
 
Van der Sar
Rio
Vidic
Keane
Scholes
Giggs
Yorke
Cole

won’t insult these players by attempting current spine
 
McGrathsipan said:
Great teams are usually built around a spine of a quality goal keeper, good centre backs, consistently good central midfield and a quality striker.
These are the players that the team is built around. Their quality will mean that you can afford one or two flair/luxury players that add that extra layer.
One of these players is usually the leader - driving things on the field and being that rock making sure that he and his team-mates will do the hard yards for each other.

Outside the keeper we have none of that. We have no leader, we have no consistently good players, to me it looks like we have nobody thats willing to put it on the line for their team mates.

Our so called elite players

Bruno is horrendous for a long time now - does nothing but whine.
Rashford is dreadful
Greenwood seems off.
Sancho seems off.
Fred is a worker but he just isnt an elite player
Maguire is bang average
Shaw is incredibly limited
WanBissaka is not an elite player
MC T isnt elite
Pogba - a fecking chancer and a show-pony. No interest in his team
Martial - passenger
Ronaldo - over the hill
Varane - the jury is still out. He is a quality player but we havent seen it yet


Until we can get a team with a spine of quality and grit then we are at nothing. It doesnt surprise me at all that we are still shite.
a good few of these players need to be shown the door
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Man, you're way over the top here. Everything's just shit to you. Good luck with that.
 
Carlsen19 said:
Come off it man.
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No, you come off it. Maguire made the tournament team at the euros, which is a world class performance. But you lot have the attention span of gnats so Maguire is shit, Bruno is shit and Rashford is shit. This place is becoming an idiocy pit.
 
justsomebloke said:
Man, you're way over the top here. Everything's just shit to you. Good luck with that.
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The table doesn't lie. Why did Ole get sacked?
Look back 4 or 5 years and tell me who are the go to players that will leave it all on the pitch!
Show me how the captain drives us on and motivates his team to be the best. Do we have a midfield that are solid and consistent? A centre back pairing that are hard to beat? A forward that is consistent?

I'm interested in your take
 
We gone from having a spine of

Maguire Lindelof
McTominay Fred

To

Varane Martinez
Casemiro Eriksen

That’s the biggest factor in our turn of fortunes for me. If you have a solid spine everything can be built around it. What an upgrade that is!
 
Chief123 said:
We gone from having a spine of

Maguire Lindelof
McTominay Fred

To

Varane Martinez
Casemiro Eriksen

That’s the biggest factor in our turn of fortunes for me. If you have a solid spine everything can be built around it. What an upgrade that is!
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Agreed. We really see their effect in terms of quality.
 
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