Which position is our biggest problem?

Red Rash

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I think it's fair to say that as a team we have a lot of problems, there probably isn't an area of the pitch where you couldn't argue that we need to upgrade.

However I think in terms of priority, midfield is the biggest area of weakness we have in the team.

Matic - leaving in the summer but probably still our best CM however unfortunately doesn't have the legs to play week in and week out

Pogba - also likely to leave in the summer. Probably one of out most talented players but wildly inconsistent and needs a disciplined defensive midfielder next to him to get the best from him

Fred - I like Fred in a lot of ways as he always gives 100 percent and is good at pressing however his first touch, passing, positioning and strength are below what we need

McTominay - as much as I try, I just don't see anything that makes me think he has a future as a starter at this club. Average passer, not great positionally and gets run past way too easily. Has good strength, decent in the air and not bad at carrying the ball.

Donny Van De Beek - barely given a chance but I think ETH will try and use him. Still unknown as to whether he is good enough or not but has clever movement and is good at quick one touch passing.

I really struggle to think of many games this season where we have won the midfield battle. Our midfield is constantly overrun and we lack even basic defensive shape to protect the back four.

I think we have a lot of issues to fix in the team but if we can upgrade this position I think it would have the biggest impact on our performances.

Where do you feel we need to upgrade the most?
 
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DM. Affects the entire way we play. McTominay and Fred are not holding midfielders, they do not screen the defence or mark/track back effectively. A competent DM would make a huge difference to our team.
 
Central Midfield as we need at least 2 players there, preferably 3.

Attack - a striker and left-footed forward.

These two are essential and then we also need a right-back and a goalkeeper.
 
Has been Central Midfield since 2009 and it hasn’t changed.
 
Yeah it's obviously midfield.

Doesn't matter whether we play a 3 or a double pivot next season. Are options are dreadful.

We lose the midfield battle most games, even when we play Wolves, Brighton, etc.

Going into next season, we have:
Fred
McTominay
Van de Beek
Fernandes
Garner
Hannibal
 
Midfield but full backs aren't far from that. It says a lot that Valencia has easily been our best right back of the past 10 years
 
jderbyshire said:
Yeah it's obviously midfield.

Doesn't matter whether we play a 3 or a double pivot next season. Are options are dreadful.

We lose the midfield battle most games, even when we play Wolves, Brighton, etc.

Going into next season, we have:
Fred
McTominay
Van de Beek
Fernandes
Garner
Hannibal
Click to expand...

And arguably 3 of those aren't actually midfielders, 4 if you don't count McTominay as a footballer.
 
Midfield. It exacerbates the weaknesses our the rest of our squad to a ridiculous extent. The defense looks even more like shit because the opposition can just wander through midfield, and the attack get fewer chances to create something because we can't string passes together or keep possession.
 
DM is obviously our biggest issue that we’ve not addressed for years. I know we’ve conceded a ridiculous amount of goals even more then the likes of Burnley but a solid DM instantly makes you look a lot better and protects the defence. Same with the CM… a solid midfield that can control games will make you concede less goals. I’d say we need to sign a DM, CB and then a striker. We also need to upgrade in the full back positions we don’t have a rb that can cross a ball.
 
A solid DM is not going to make the lazy shits in front work harder, but it is still comfortably the area that needs immediate attention, then full back.
 
DM, RW, RB in that order

Need another CM as well.

The problem we've got is, the state we're in now means we need to nail the first 3. If any of the DM, RW & RB that we do sign isn't the right one we're in trouble again because we'll need a ST and other players with ? against might turn into a problem position.
 
CM

It's the only position where even if everyone returns to form next season we're still fecked in
 
Red Rash said:
I think it's fair to say that as a team we have a lot of problems, there probably isn't an area of the pitch where you couldn't argue that we need to upgrade.

However I think in terms of priority, midfield is the biggest area of weakness we have in the team.

Matic - leaving in the summer but probably still our best CM however unfortunately doesn't have the legs to play week in and week out

Pogba - also likely to leave in the summer. Probably one of out most talented players but wildly inconsistent and needs a disciplined defensive midfielder next to him to get the best from him

Fred - I like Fred in a lot of ways as he always gives 100 percent and is good at pressing however his first touch, passing, positioning and strength are below what we need

McTominay - as much as I try, I just don't see anything that makes me think he has a future as a starter at this club. Average passer, not great positionally and gets run past way too easily. Has good strength, decent in the air and not bad at carrying the ball.

Donny Van De Beek - barely given a chance but I think ETH will try and use him. Still unknown as to whether he is good enough or not but has clever movement and is good at quick one touch passing.

I really struggle to think of many games this season where we have won the midfield battle. Our midfield is constantly overrun and we lack even basic defensive shape to protect the back four.

I think we have a lot of issues to fix in the team but if we can upgrade this position I think it would have the biggest impact on our performances.

Where do you feel we need to upgrade the most?
Click to expand...

The biggest issue is obviously DM, followed by CM, RB, ST, RW, CB and GK in that order for me.
 
Full back, imo. It's where we concede most of our goals, and a big part of why we can't progess up the pitch to score ourselves.

CM gets all the attention. But you can get away with a pedestrian midfield in a well coached team more easily than you can get away with misfiring fullbacks.

If I could either take City's midfield or Liverpool's fullbacks, I'd go with Liverpool's fullbacks.
 
Absolutely midfield and then it depends on the system to say what kind of mid.

If we can control games a lot more, both before and after scoring, we'll look a completely different team.
 
Wingbacks or fullbacks. Probably the most important position in modern football then the midfielders bc we're in dire need.
 
Dante said:
Full back, imo. It's where we concede most of our goals, and a big part of why we can't progess up the pitch to score ourselves.

CM gets all the attention. But you can get away with a pedestrian midfield in a well coached team more easily than you can get away with misfiring fullbacks.

If I could either take City's midfield or Liverpool's fullbacks, I'd go with Liverpool's fullbacks.
Click to expand...

I'd argue that Liverpool's midfield and how they function as a unit allows Liverpool's fullbacks to florish, especially Robertson. TAA is the superior fullback, but his defensive woes are limited by a well balanced and functioning midfield anchored by Fabinho.

Joao Cancelo has been the best left back in the league this year. Been class.
 
BluesJr said:
Has been Central Midfield since 2009 and it hasn’t changed.
Click to expand...

/thread

We haven’t had a good midfield since carrick scholes? And even that people complained about. I’m not sure why we can never get it to function.

For me it will be ETHs litmus test. If he can get proper midfielders and actually have us controlling games, I think he will be worth sticking with regardless of trophies.
 
Midfield, Midfield, Midfield!

We've known it for ages now. Must be a lot of blind folks at United for not seeing this for years :rolleyes:

I'm just hoping we finally address this.
 
Two central midfielders is probably the priority, but surprised nobody is mentioning centre back as a priority too. Likely Bailly and JOnes leave. Our supposed best centre back has had lots of injuries and hasnt excelled in the games he has played, our other expensive centre back has been average last season and diabolical this, our back up centre back is simplly average at best and has lots of weaknesses and our great young hope has been on loan several times and is in his mid twenties now.

We dont have a single centre back we can rely on currently.

In all honesty there is no priority, take away maybe SHaw and Varane if they can stay fit and find form and DeGea behind them, probably the rest of our back six cb, rb, cm, cm are all priorities as is a striker as we will possibly onl yhave a soon to be 38 year old as our only option.

Even of Rashford, Martial and Greenwood are all done here, I still wouldnt place a RW at the top of our priorities at all even though needed. We do have Elanga, Pellestri, Amad, Garnacho all as options there, all unproven of course.

One or two priority signings solves little in my mind. We simply have to sign a minimum of five players, would say morelike 7 even 8 to really solve our current problems in a window and mage progress players wise
 
Not sure why anybody is asking for a DM in the sense they mean it. We have two/three positions in midfield, I expect all of them to be able to tackle. More important is getting two/three players in there who can actually play football which is something we haven’t really had since the days of carrick and scholes.

Semantics i know, but some on here would have us looking at an Idrissa Gueye or that clown from Leicester who can barely pass a ball 5 yards, essentially midfield versions of AwB. No, fecking, thanks.
 
Dm as we've said for the past thousand years.
Then maybe fullbacks.
 
Two CM's is a must. Its been far to easy for any team we play against to bypass our midfield. The amount chances we've conceded through the centre of the pitch is criminal. We can't control possession, we're useless in transitions going both ways. It causes all sorts of problems. CM needs to be the priority.

Defensively we've been woeful too, but their not helped in the slightest by the midfield in front of them. I'd hate to be a CB playing in this United team. 56 league goals conceded this season, 8 clean sheets is absolutely shocking.

Of course the structure of the team as a whole is also rubbish. I'm confident ETH will fix that, and we won't look so hopeless all across the pitch.
 
Dante said:
Full back, imo. It's where we concede most of our goals, and a big part of why we can't progess up the pitch to score ourselves.

CM gets all the attention. But you can get away with a pedestrian midfield in a well coached team more easily than you can get away with misfiring fullbacks.

If I could either take City's midfield or Liverpool's fullbacks, I'd go with Liverpool's fullbacks.
Click to expand...

City's midfield is the reason why they don't face an attack every 5 minutes so I will take their midfielders all day every day.
 
Timber
Tchouameni/Neves
Bissouma
Nkunku
A striker

Anything less and we will struggle to reach top 4.
 
DM and CM and it’s not really close. The best football we’ve played since SAF left has pretty much always involved having competent midfielders that could screen play as well as having the technique to pass between the lines to our forwards (Carrick under LvG, Matic before his legs went under Mourinho, Matic and Pogba pivot during lockdown, etc.)
 
For me, the two most important signings we need.

1. A Defensive deep lying playmaker Carrick style.
2. Two worldclass wingbacks
 
Players to leave:

Jones
Bailly
Pogba
Matic
Lingard
Mata
Cavani
Greenwood, most likely

Anything less than 5 new signings is just too little. And then we have the following who are not enough:

AWB
Dalot
Telles
McTominay
Fred, maybe
Rashford, maybe

Not many youngsters to bring through bar Elanga and Hannibal.
 
Midfield.... 2 or 3 needed who can slot in straight away. Get that and the likes of Harry, Shaw, Rashford etc. will be adequate for next season.
 
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