Quote:
Originally Posted by bhlloy
Ten Haag is either making a deliberate point to the Glazers or he’s not lasting more than half a season. A center midfield of Fred and McTominay is probably a bottom 5 midfield in the prem… and that might be generous.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miami_fan
To be fair, who else is supposed to do the running for everyone upfront along with Fernandes AND protect Matt Maguire from being exposed? I am not even trying to slag off Maguire either. He is not a bad defender. He just can't be left out on an island while everyone is bombing forward. The fact that they have not bought a DM to move both of them to the bench is a failure of the board once again.
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This is the third year in a row that the "starting" double pivot (assuming a 4-2-3-1, which has been pretty standard) is McFred. I'm not sure either of these start for any other EPL midfield except maybe the newly-promoted sides. But they're in good company because you could say that about a fair number of the side.
This is what happens when no one who understands football is in charge. The number of incredibly poor decisions that have been made because there is no consistent strategy is mind-boggling, especially when you look at how other clubs operate on these principles, with Manchester City and Liverpool being the paragons, of course.
Example 1: Maguire is a perfectly fine battling defender who excelled in the low block at Leicester where his size & strength were put to good use. He's terrible when asked to play a high line because he doesn't have the pace or agility to do it.
Example 2: Fullbacks comfortable in attack and defense have been increasingly important over the past 10 years. United spent 50M on AWB, who has never developed a comfort level going forward. He's a good to great defending fullback for a side that is expecting to be pinned back on a regular basis, but is not going to take that side forward.
Example 3: Competent holding midfielders have been pretty much a necessity in the modern game for, again, at least 10 years. Michael Carrick's last really full season was 10 years ago and although he officially retired from playing in 2018, he had only two appearances that year. Throughout all that time no adequate replacement has ever been pursued or contemplated. So you get the leaky sieve of McFred putting the inadequate defense under even more pressure, and attacking players like Fernandes routinely having to come incredibly deep to restart play.
The whole club is now a disaster from top to bottom. A truly dysfunctional organization with no obvious path forward. I wish Ten Hag the best, but I strongly suspect this will be another lost season of shipping ridiculous goals, being out-controlled in midfield by everyone, and only randomness in attack. Plus we likely have a whole Ronaldo want-away saga to get through which could easily last through the January window (when hopefully some team with UCL ambitions will get desperate and the fact that he couldn't be registered for the UCL will be a bonus big enough to overlook his enormous wages).