Ten Hag’s Midfield reboot Part 2

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Was thinking earlier as you do when your mind drifts towards football. Do Utd need another midfield overhaul in the summer?

Casemiro - looks like his legs are really going and he doesn’t strike me as the type of guy happy with a squad role, hence why he asked to leave Madrid.
Eriksen - good for 45-60 minutes against weaker sides but in a big game could you trust him.
McTominay - yes as a number 10 he’s handy in the box but we are never going to play to his strengths so he needs to move on.
Amrabat - looks like he will be a handy player to have but doesn’t look to be a world class player.
Van De Beek - he needs to leave.
Bruno - is he a fading force?
Mainoo/Hannibal - both in the early stages of their career so the club shouldn’t be reliant on them. Their potential progress should be considered a bonus not part of the plan.
Mount - starting to get a little worried now he’s fallen behind Amrabat and Eriksen. A good player but better than Bruno? Starting to think we’ve done Van De Beek 2.0 signed a good player then tried to convert him into something he isn’t. Hopefully he turns a corner and shows what the manager saw in him.

I guess where I’m going is will next summer need another 2-3 centre mid signings?
 
We practically need a whole starting 11, truth be known

You could easily have the same argument about the back 4 and top 3
 
Yeah feels like we need 3 defenders, 3 midfielders and 3 attackers in the summer.

Good luck
 
The defence is fine but midfield is where we need to strengthen.

Wouldn’t mind Saudi coming in and throwing £40m at us for Casemiro. Think you snap their hand off for that. I think Amrabat is worth taking on full time as he would be a good squad player. Eriksen is also worth keeping in the squad.

Van de Beek will be moved on I’m sure.

I’m starting to get to the point where I also wouldn’t be averse to selling Bruno if we can identify a very good replacement.

Mount is a strange one, not really sure why we bought him and you need to play to his strengths and not shoehorn him into an unfamiliar role.

Hannibal, Mainoo and Gore are all promising midfielders, so I think they will start to become more and more part of the squad.

Overall I think we should sign Amrabat in the summer if it’s a pretty cheap deal and then definitely need to replace Casemiro. Then you probably say one more. So yep probably three midfielders in the summer are needed. A little bit like what Liverpool have done, out with the old and in with the new.
 
Thing is you can play this game all over the pitch.

In defence you can make a good case for Varane, Lindelof and Maguire all needing to be moved on. Not sure either right back is good enough to start every week so that potentially 4 new defenders.

Up top we need another CF and another option on either wing.

The worry is there isn’t really anything from the youth team that could plug these gaps. There’s quite a few who’ve moved up in the last 12 months Gore, Hannibal, Mainoo and Garnacho look like they’ve got a chance of making the first team squad.
 
I guess that’s the problem for the last 10 years in all areas of the pitch. After each summer it feels like we still need another 4 or 5 players to really compete, then the next summer comes and it’s rinse and repeat.

The midfield though is where we haven’t been able to nail. We’ve always seemed to try and shoehorn players into a midfield two when that’s not their best position. Off the top of my head I think of Fellaini, Pogba, McTominay and latterly Mount this season.

I think you can stick with our defence for another season if it means you really concentrate on the midfield. AWB is improving all the time, Shaw is a fantastic left back and our centre back options are not the worst. We probably do need another centre back though as you cannot rely on Varane with his injuries.

There isn’t much coming out of the youth team apart from the few guys mentioned. A few of the young guys that we had high hopes for like Shoretire and McNeill haven’t really kicked on yet.
 
the youth team is a real low at the moment. I believe they are sorting this out at the moment by hiring new staff.

The problem of the first team is any lack of leader in the transfer market. And really poor thinking, always leaving it to the last minute and panic buying. Our signings seem to drag on all window.

We don't seem to have any thought about the long term when we buy, do they fit into our system (asuming we had one) are they mentally strong enough, and are they actually good enough. Looks like we don't do much of a check on their personality either.

We've had 3 or 4 managers all with different playing styles, wtf is going on behind closed doors is a worry with our transfer staff/strategy. And the last window was just as bad.
 
I think we have to realise that our youth team is not producing world class young talent anymore look at the England youth sides there are very few United players in these squads now. City/Chelsea are churning out much better players consistently than we are and it's a fact. We get a good crop every few years but those two are banging out top quality year on year a few get integrated to the first team squad but most are sold for big money to fund their signings. Sadly that comes down to our owners not being willing to keep up with the spending these two were doing to attract the best young players.

In terms of the senior squad to me it comes down to every manager gets to do the bare minimum each summer to rebuild the squad because the owners wont invest their own money to cover the FFP investment. So if they need 5 players but can make do with 3, they only get 3. So you leave 2 problems for the next summer so when next summer comes and you need 7 players but maybe only get 4 you carry 3 over and it becomes a cumulative effect year on year the list gets bigger.

The worry for me is Ten Hag has signed Casemiro, Eriksen and Mount to rebuild his midfield and in the summer he might find that 2 of them are already at the point where they need to be replaced.
 
I think Eriksen was bought because of the mess we made of the window.

And I know you and IDFD love to slag him. But he's been one of our better post Fergie signings, even if he can only do a half. In general it's those halves we win the games in
 
I don't have a major issue with Eriksen, I think he's been a cracking player, I don't think he's ever quite been a world class player which is why he as at Spurs in his prime but to be fair to him he's been a decent signing for us.

My worry with Eriksen has always been he was another short term fix to a longer term problem, he was signed as a squad player in my opinion. It worked for about 6 months with him as a starter but he only really had 60 minutes in the tank last season, now we're basically getting 30-45 minutes out of him. It was another cheap bodge job signing rather than fixing the problem.

I can see why he did it he didn't have a huge pot of money to spend and Eriksen was on a free and he was probably at that point hoping he'd get De Jong to be his playmaker in midfield so he could use Eriksen as a squad player rather than a starter. So you've kind of dealt with the problem with a short and long term plan if you signed those two.

The problem then is we get in Casemiro who's a great player but like Eriksen time is catching up to him, so we're doubling down on short term solutions. Within 2 seasons both are probably going to be at the point that they need replacing. So you aren't really building your squad your just patching up the old one to get results that keep you in a job.

The worry I have is the replacement for Eriksen which we believe is Mount isn't even getting in the team. He's been fit for a few weeks now but I don't think he's started since that cup game vs Palace and he's not starting the Eriksen role when he does play so we have no idea if he's going to be up to the job.

If we were really building this season we should be playing Amrabat/Mount as the centre mid pairing as they're the players likely to be here next season.
 
I think some fans are quick to dismiss him, played great but can only do it 45 mins etc. is the kind of thing you always hear, Eriksen is always followed with a but....

If those 30 mins are our best mins then great
 
You cannot rely on a player who can only play 30 minutes though surely even you can see it’s an issue with him as a player?

Plus you can’t play him at all in the big games as he doesn’t have the energy to survive.
 
As for the rest of our midfield we are jumping the gun a little on Casemiro. This time last season people thought he was a poor signing.

Mount will have his uses and Bruno will come alive again. He’s an emotional player and hasn’t reacted well to his friend leaving. Bruno always looks better when Rashford is on form. If Rashford and Hojlund start putting away the chances he’s creating people will be raving about him again. Only Salah and Trippier have created more big chances this season than Bruno. He’s been as usual the best attacking mid in the prem. People are raving about Maddison but Bruno has created more chances and better chances they just aren’t being finished. Yes he gives the ball away a lot but as I proved last season no more than other players playing that role is completion rate on passes last season was higher than De Bruyne but you have to expect these type of players to lose the ball trying the sublime.

Amrabaat will be a good player for us.

The squad is nowhere near as bad as they are currently looking they are just performing at 4s/5s and the manager needs to get more out of them.

We should be all over Toney in January.

Our defence doesn’t worry me. A RB would be handy but it’s capable. It’s about getting what we’ve got performing better every week.
 
Mr C said:
I think some fans are quick to dismiss him, played great but can only do it 45 mins etc. is the kind of thing you always hear, Eriksen is always followed with a but....

If those 30 mins are our best mins then great
Click to expand...

You can't be in a situation where every game you are basically stinking up the joint for the first half and then relying on this guy to come on and fix it. The plan should be to have a team that's ready to go from the 1st minute to the last.

That isn't criticising Eriksen it's criticising the people who's put this squad of players together over the last 5 years.
 
That isn't what I am saying at all.

This is the converstation

Eriksen played well, changed the game,
Yeah but he can only do it for 30 mins.

It's irrelevant, It's just hating for hating.

Bruno has another stinker, yet he gets, yeah but he can change games, he's not done it yet.

For the record, I would like to replace probably the whole squad with better players. If you had a fantasy football wildcard, and you could change the man utd squad, there aren't many you're keeping.

Most of them have been stinking the place up for a few years, threaten something then bottle it. None of them have the qualities you need to play for united.
 
IDFD said:
As for the rest of our midfield we are jumping the gun a little on Casemiro. This time last season people thought he was a poor signing.

Mount will have his uses and Bruno will come alive again. He’s an emotional player and hasn’t reacted well to his friend leaving. Bruno always looks better when Rashford is on form. If Rashford and Hojlund start putting away the chances he’s creating people will be raving about him again. Only Salah and Trippier have created more big chances this season than Bruno. He’s been as usual the best attacking mid in the prem. People are raving about Maddison but Bruno has created more chances and better chances they just aren’t being finished. Yes he gives the ball away a lot but as I proved last season no more than other players playing that role is completion rate on passes last season was higher than De Bruyne but you have to expect these type of players to lose the ball trying the sublime.

Amrabaat will be a good player for us.

The squad is nowhere near as bad as they are currently looking they are just performing at 4s/5s and the manager needs to get more out of them.

We should be all over Toney in January.

Our defence doesn’t worry me. A RB would be handy but it’s capable. It’s about getting what we’ve got performing better every week.
Click to expand...

I dunno the Casemiro situation has been ringing alarm bells since March last year, his last really good game was the Carabao Cup final. He ended last season poorly and has carried that into this season. He isn't just looking out of form he's looking like he's lost another yard of pace and my worry is he isn't getting that back at his age.

As for Bruno being upset because his mate has left he needs to get over it you can't sulk over something that happened 4 months ago. The rest I get he's still creating plenty of chances but I do think we have to make plans that don't involve him being the only creative source for the team with him playing 90 minutes in 50 odd games a season. The team has to be able to function with and without Bruno. City haven't imploded because De Bruyne is out injured we can't be so reliant on 1 player going forward it's a recipe for disaster.

The attack to me is a bigger problem than the defence especially when everyone is fit. In January we've got to find someone to replace Sancho and ideally we need another centre forward. My guess is they'll try and find someone who can play on the right and through the centre bit like City have with Alvarez and Liverpool have with players like Jota and Gakpo.
 
Mr C said:
That isn't what I am saying at all.

This is the converstation

Eriksen played well, changed the game,
Yeah but he can only do it for 30 mins.

It's irrelevant, It's just hating for hating.

Bruno has another stinker, yet he gets, yeah but he can change games, he's not done it yet.

For the record, I would like to replace probably the whole squad with better players. If you had a fantasy football wildcard, and you could change the man utd squad, there aren't many you're keeping.

Most of them have been stinking the place up for a few years, threaten something then bottle it. None of them have the qualities you need to play for united.
Click to expand...

It isn't hating for the sake of hating it's giving him praise for his performance but recognising that him only being able to play at that level for 30 minutes is a problem for the team.

I've criticised Bruno and I've said he's very lucky to still be in the team and that the manager needs to be building a team that can play without him. Being so reliant on him to create chances is a massive problem for the manager to solve and it's why when Eriksen is on the pitch it helps because suddenly there's a second play who can create chances.

Those two together actually works pretty well but the problem is that you can only play them together for half the game.
 
Hmmmmm

Me for example: Eriksen played well
You for example: he can only do it for 30 mns.

Thats not you, for example, giving praise.

The problem for the team is the manager seems to be struggling big time, if it wasn't for an amazing 5 mins from Mctom, and a pen save, this season would be over already. He's got to sort this out.

And the key players are off. This isn't a team, it's built on some players producing a piece of magic. And it would seem all those players have told everyone how they do their tricks and are ready for panto

Also, I know you are quite honest on Bruno.

A team that struggled against Sheffield and Copenhagen is going to lose to even the worst of City
 
Your example isn't something that has actually happened though is it. It's hypothetical.

I haven't shot down your praise of Eriksen with that comment this season I've praised him and how he's been used.

My point of the original topic is after 2 summers and something like 150m spent on 4 new midfielders (this includes Amrabat as a signing rather than a loan) are we already in a situation where it's going to need another 200m this summer to bring in another 3.
 
I did say you, for example, not actually you. And I didn't mean me either.

And I agree we need a new midfield, I said that in post 2, the Eriksen thing was a side off the original post.
 

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