Matic, Fellaini, Herrera

Matic and Fellaini was a joke of a selection. Herrera looked like he wasn’t fit
 
We aren't mobile in midfield fullstop. Losing pogba was a blow as he is the only creative midfield player we have. Fellaini was comfortably our best midfield player which in honesty doesn't say much today.
 
I can't fault Fellaini today, we know what he is. Expect a lot more from Matic and Herrera. I think Matic is done as a regular, was rushed back too soon this season after injury, no pre-season not helped. Herrera's been in and out with injuries, thought he was brilliant in changing the game at Bournemouth and put a shift in midweek but just awful today, sounds as though he's heading back to Spain on a free next summer. Fellaini been struggling with injuries in the past year too. I'm not sure what Pereira did wrong to get totally exiled, I probably missed that game but I doubt it was worse than the tosh Matic has served up this season. With Fred, I can understand patience with him, tougher league physically, spent most of summer injured and no pre-season, problem is we need a £40-50m player to step up now and there oesn't seem to be any faith in him.

I said it a few weeks back on here, we are still really looking for a midfield, especially ones that are good in possession. The 3 today, if Mourinho goes could all possibly go leaving us with Pereira, Pogba and Fred (Not counting the poor lad McTominay). On top of what we already need, we'll need a mobile defensive midfielder next summer.
 
I honestly think Herrera is the DM we need. His stats match Kante minute for minute. Just isn’t match fit. But Mourinho needs his DM to be 6 foot plus. The two best in the league were Makelele and Kante who were both less than 5’10 but I actually hate this DM idea. Give me box to box midfielders again
 
Kante playing box to box this season with Jorginho playmaking and controlling from deep, I shouldn't have said defensive midfielder, we need a Carrick/Jorginho.
 
A lot of it is Mourinho’s fault. I’ll defend the guy as I think we need to make signing to sort the defence but he can’t continue to send out a side that isn’t willing to attack from the start. There isn’t a single player in the league that can pass a ball like Scholes/Carrick but they still make it work. I actually really dislike Jorginho and his style of play. Half of his passes are under 5 yards and it seems a pointless touch for no reason to me.
 
I mean where's Fred?

We've spent £50m on this guy and they're chucking in a half fit Fellaini for the derby ahead of him.

Why do we need to be land of the giants against City it made no sense to me you need quick players who can handle the ridiculous movement and close control of the City players now Fellaini played alright but we were so slow in midfield just couldn't engage the City players at all when they had the ball.

I know it feels like we change the target of our anger every few weeks but Matic has been poor all season surely it's time for him to be dropped like Lukaku was.
 
I don't think dropping matic will happen. I think Jose thinks he is playing well. He just can't see that pace and skill are paramount in this day and age.
 
I think he trusts Matic to stick to the plan and to instruction he's not going to vacate midfield and leave us wide open as he knows Pogba will let the team down defensively in midfield he wants that security. On the ball he's really not offering much and it makes us really reliant on Pogba for creativity from midfield.
 
I think he trusts Matic to stick to the plan and to instruction he's not going to vacate midfield and leave us wide open as he knows Pogba will let the team down defensively in midfield he wants that security. On the ball he's really not offering much and it makes us really reliant on Pogba for creativity from midfield.


Having no Pogba showed massively yesterday like you say, and I agree Matic needs a rest - throw Fred in for a run of games, we need to get his confidence up.
 
I just want to see Fred play a few games to see what he is I'd never really watched him play before he came and he reminds me a bit of Herrera so far in that I still don't really know what his main attributes are other than kicking people.

Seems like new signings are sometimes introduced slowly under Mourinho like Mkhitaryan & Lindelöf both hardly featured at the start in their first season. Fred has been in and out a few times not been that convincing when he has played but one thing he has looked good at is getting stuck in and winning the ball back I think he'd have thrived in that role yesterday vs City.

Would have been nice to see him alongside Herrera maybe give Fellaini more freedom to get up near the strikers so we can be direct to him. Everyone knows City like to foul when they lose the ball so beating that press sometimes it's easy to just go direct.
 
Odd selection after odd selection. You play Fred in a game against City because he brings energy and mobility. With Pogba out you needed that energy and yet he goes with Fellaini?
 
To be fair Fellaini played well but I do agree that we probably needed someone like Fred in there to give us a bit of bite. Also Herrera usually performs pretty well in the big games so I had no problem with him playing but he also had a shocker.

The one problem I had with this midfield is that no-one looked comfortable on the ball, we say Smalling treats the ball like a hand grenade when it comes to his feet but Matic and Herrera were the same. Fellaini actually showed some composure but we crave someone who can keep the ball moving, I thought Pereira was maybe going to be that man this season but he’s gone awol.
 
Odd selection after odd selection. You play Fred in a game against City because he brings energy and mobility. With Pogba out you needed that energy and yet he goes with Fellaini?

I assume he would have gone Fellaini Matic Pogba with Herrera being the one who came in for Pogba not Fellaini. That was the midfield he went with in the West Ham game so it had a proven track record of being great and not being laughably slow.
 
I assume he would have gone Fellaini Matic Pogba with Herrera being the one who came in for Pogba not Fellaini. That was the midfield he went with in the West Ham game so it had a proven track record of being great and not being laughably slow.

:p
 
It seems pretty clear that Fred has struggled to settle in possibly both on the pitch and off it Liverpool have had similar problems with Fabinho.

Fred to me looks like a signing from another club who don't play the type of football we play so he doesn't settle in it's why we should never sign players from Dortmund ever again. Fred was a Mourinho choice in terms of signing as far as we know but he obviously isn't getting what he wanted from him at this point but we can't go into games with the midfield we used against City it's to slow and lacks any spark.

We had problems last season when Pogba was out injured when Herrera/Matic played as a two as both kind of want to do the same job and seemed to cancel each other out and allow the other team to dominate midfield.
 
Fred to me looks like a signing from another club who don't play the type of football we play so he doesn't settle in it's why we should never sign players from Dortmund ever again.
Unless we were to hire a manager that plays that kind of style which I'm ever hopeful will happen eventually.
 

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