Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2017

beno619

Lord TSC wrote: »

Not saying I believe or not the Belotti stories, but there is the possibility after the year just gone that Jose wants to look at a 2 striker system, in which case we would 110% need another striker brought in too...

This talk of a 2 striker system has come out of nowhere and I dont see why anyone thinks its going to happen.

KH25 wrote: »

I could very easily see 2 strikers coming in. Zlatan is gone and Rooney's impact as a striker has seriously diminished (regardless of whether he is here or not). That leaves Martial and Rashford. Both of those can play across the front line and an injury leaves just one. With the amount of games next year I can see 2 strikers coming in.

Rooney barely played up top last season.
We could well bring in a new player to lead the line and a back up option I just dont see us signing two 60 million pound forwards.

DM_7

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Well it would leave 2 - because the argument is assuming we are signing 1 striker (Morata?)

One striker - with the first choice being Morata, backed up by Rashford and Martial.

If we signed a second striker I would have to think it would be a player that would come knowing they are a backup option, and coming in relatively cheap.

Could Jose not maintain Martial as the back up with Rashford and two new forward signings in the team?

Mitch Connor

DM_7 wrote: »

Could Jose not maintain Martial as the back up with Rashford and two new forward signings in the team?

I don't think so, no. Practically, I can't see United wanting to use Martial (given the investment) in that role or him being happy with it - would also be unlikely to develop Martial to his potential.

I would have to think United would sell and replace Martial before signing another striker to drop him to a backup role.

pjohnson

Am I the only one who views Martial as a winger opposed to a striker?

Leroy42

I think, if we are really planning on signing both of them (although IMO MU are simply playing them off against each other to try to limit the fee) then it would be a interchangeable 3 up front of Morata, Bellotti and Rashford and Martial looking for the three positions. Within each game, the 3 move move around to allow each to serve either left, right or centre at various time. Each player would get ample game time.

Injuries would be covered by the likes of Mata, Micky moving forward (but limiting the change to interchange during the match).

That is on the basis of Zlatan and Rooney both going. That is 600k a week in wages saved, plenty to afford two top strikers.

Is there any chance that we go for Veratti?

Lord TSC

beno619 wrote: »

This talk of a 2 striker system has come out of nowhere and I dont see why anyone thinks its going to happen.

I think it's entirely because we seem to be linked with both Morata and Belotti, and there's several reports we want both. That only makes sense if Jose wants to play two up front, because as you said, we aren't spending 150m+ on a first team striker and a back up in that breakdown.

Mind, it is way more likely getting one will see the end of our interest in the other. It's just, for now, trying to make sense of the stories out there.

Trigger

€10m for Januzaj, Real Sociedad are interested.

https://twitter.com/footballespana_/status/874197290591846400

jayo26

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVOwhfnh66P/ happy monday

pjohnson

Would people prefer we just went for Sandro, apparently a £6m release clause?

markcahill1985

astradave wrote:

€10m for Januzaj, Real Sociedad are interested.

Some fall from Grace.

HigginsJ

markcahill1985 wrote: »

Some fall from Grace.

Good to get some money in for him though, I do hope we are following the likes of Madrid and City and inserting buy back clauses into these deals for younger players.

DARK-KNIGHT

if ibra is 100% gone we need two strikers. rashford is good but just not currently good enough imo. he will be good enough before someone jumps at me but he needs time to progress and mature his game

TheDoc

DARK-KNIGHT wrote: »

if ibra is 100% gone we need two strikers. rashford is good but just not currently good enough imo. he will be good enough before someone jumps at me but he needs time to progress and mature his game

Depends if Jose persists with 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 formattions, moves to something else, and what happens with Martial.

If staying with a single striker, then new striker, Martial and Rashford should prove to be enough. You can't really have a top striker playing second fiddle.

If we move to a system with two strikers (unlikely, like so not going to happen imo) then we would need four strikers.

If Martial is being sold, then there is a requirement for a third striker. If Martial is being kept, he is a better striker in that sole role than Rashford.

The reality being, bar a serious injury, our new striker is going to be #1 and will play 45+ games this season. Martial and Rashford will fill in for minor injuries, dead rubbers, resting games and cup games.

Jose ran Ibra into the ground at his age. I doubt he will somehow change what he wants from players and put sharing loads on two new strikers. Historically he has played with one, had one out and out striker and the backups feed on scraps. And it seems its what he demands from his players, and why Ferera is so highly rated and close to him. Historically Jose likes a settled team that he runs into the ground.

That problem becoming more and more evident in recent years btw, where his teams have been huffing and puffing by January/Februrary. But its what he demands and expects.

I'd be very surprised with two strikers. Expecting one, the new CB done, a new LB and a new CM if not two. But I'd say 4 is going to be the number

bucketybuck

DARK-KNIGHT wrote: »

if ibra is 100% gone we need two strikers. rashford is good but just not currently good enough imo. he will be good enough before someone jumps at me but he needs time to progress and mature his game

Can you imagine buying one striker, then before christmas he gets injured, misses 6 weeks/2 months and we are back to the two kids with 9 league goals between them last season as our strikers? If that doesn't concern you then you must not have watched our last ten games of the season or noted how badly we started to struggle once Zlatan lost form and then got injured.

Even worse, can you imagine buying only one striker and he doesn't settle, he has a difficult start similar to Mikhitaryan and goes on a long run of games without scoring...

I'm repeating myself but we cannot afford to struggle in front of goal next season, we cannot afford to take risks or hope that potential turns into top class over the summer. Its a nice dream to have one top class striker and trust the two kids to step up and score the goals if needed but risking our season on that dream would be incredibly foolish.

pjohnson

http://www.manutd.com/en/News-And-Features/Exclusive-Interviews/2017/Jun/scott-mctominay-reveals-key-to-development-at-manchester-united.aspx?utm_campaign=ManUtd&utm_medium=post&utm_source=facebook

McTominay interview

Mitch Connor

bucketybuck wrote: »

Can you imagine buying one striker, then before christmas he gets injured, misses 6 weeks/2 months and we are back to the two kids with 9 league goals between them last season as our strikers?

I just find this kind of reasoning insane.

We had better spend 100million on getting Delle Ali incase Pogba gets injured.

We had better try to sign Neuer incase De Gea gets injured.

Yes, if our star, first choice, striker gets injured we could be in a bit of bother - as is the case for the vast majority of clubs in world football. In fact, I would guess most clubs would be happy to have Rashford and Martial to backup in such a situation.

If we play with one up front, 4 senior strikers is overload.

Constructing our squad on the basis the players we sign will (1) get significant injuries or (2) be sh1t seems a poor way to do things - and will just end up needing an infinite amount of players. "But what if BOTH strikers we sign get injured or are crap - we'd have to rely on Rashford and Martial!".

deaddonkey15

Martial scored 17 goals in his first season at United under van Gaal. He's a more than adequate replacement should our primary striker get injured. Personally, I'd back him to lead the line for the entire season.

bucketybuck

Mitch Connor wrote: »

I just find this kind of reasoning insane.

We had better spend 100million on getting Delle Ali incase Pogba gets injured.

We had better try to sign Neuer incase De Gea gets injured.

Constructing a squad to account for injuries or to mitigate for poor form is not a poor way of doing things, its very much the sensible way to do things.

And your hyperbole just misrepresents my point. Its not a case of signing Neuer as a backup to De Gea. The proper analogy would be the squad only having two kids as the goalkeeping options following a season where the goalkeeping cost us a lot of points. So you go out and get a first choice goalkeeper. And then you pick up a Sergio Romero or an Asmir Begovic as well because you know you would be ****ed if the goalkeeping cost you another CL spot.

And thats the goalkeeping position, where there is far less risk or need for rotation than there is up front.

beakerjoe

deaddonkey15 wrote: »

Martial scored 17 goals in his first season at United under van Gaal. He's a more than adequate replacement should our primary striker get injured. Personally, I'd back him to lead the line for the entire season.

Will he get the chance to is the question? With Rasford ahead of him, whom Jose loves and with Jose questioning Martials attitude, he may not get a look in up top much esp if the 2 strikers rumours are true

beno619

bucketybuck wrote: »

Can you imagine buying one striker, then before christmas he gets injured, misses 6 weeks/2 months and we are back to the two kids with 9 league goals between them last season as our strikers? If that doesn't concern you then you must not have watched our last ten games of the season or noted how badly we started to struggle once Zlatan lost form and then got injured.

Ahh yeah but you've removed all context from that scenario.

Zlatan wouldn't have done much with the negative football being played at the tale end of the season.

We had centre half's in midfield and playing RB our lack of goals wasnt down to the fact Rashford & Martial were missing chances, we created sweet feck all.

beno619

bucketybuck wrote: »

Constructing a squad to account for injuries or to mitigate for poor form is not a poor way of doing things, its very much the sensible way to do things.

Nobody is saying this.

Some posters have more faith in Martial & Rashford than you do rightly or wrongly.

HONKEY TONK

I would only get rid of

Jones
Smalling
Ibra
Rooney
Januzaj
Young
Lingard

Tom.D.BJJ

HONKEY TONK wrote: »

I would only get rid of

Jones
Smalling
Ibra
Rooney
Januzaj
Young
Lingard

One of Jones/Smalling will stay.

Getting rid of Lingard?

beakerjoe

HONKEY TONK wrote: »

I would only get rid of

Jones
Smalling
Ibra
Rooney
Januzaj
Young
Lingard

Why Lingard?

Hes a great hard working squad player. Hes no world beater, but his work rate and determination are fantastic, he rarely shys away from his defensive duties and is versatile enough as an attacking option.

Trigger

HONKEY TONK wrote: »

I would only get rid of

Jones
Smalling
Ibra
Rooney
Januzaj
Young
Lingard

And how would you fix up our homegrown quota after getting rid of all those?

Trigger

beakerjoe wrote: »

Why Lingard?

Hes a great hard working squad player. Hes no world beater, but his work rate and determination are fantastic, he rarely shys away from his defensive duties and is versatile enough as an attacking option.

Lingard is one of those players that loves United so will punch above his weight and work his bollox off for the manager to stay at the club. Jose will love that

DM_7

United have 3 forward spots available in every game with 4 in many home games.

Assuming Mkhitaryan or Mata are for one of them, then United only have Rashford, Lingard and Martial for the other two or three.

I would prefer two goal scoring players brought in than just one. 4 players for two starting spots with subs, injuries and rotation giving them all plenty of games.

For a few reasons I think two players would be better.

Ibra is gone. Need a player to replace his goals. United need more goals than just replacing Ibra.

The number of games and increased difficulty of Champions League. Greater quality is needed to navigate league and europe. Can't have another season where no real option to rotate early on exists because of bad results (Pogba and Ibra for example were overplayed early last season because of need to turn around form, get points).

I can have faith in Rashford if he was a started every week to get 15 plus but he is 19. At that age its important he is not overplayed. Not convinced Martial has earned a spot under Jose to start a lot of games.

TheDoc

I wouldn't be getting rid of Lingaard, but next season likely make or break. I don't think personally he will be good enough. He has a lot of great attributes, but in the position he plays he needs to start showing some actual tangible results. And that means goals and assists. It will be his third season in the first team, he will turn 25, and he is either going to add that final part to his game, or be a squad player for us. Ball will then be in his court if he accepts that role or wants to move for first team football (and we will likely get a nice fee).

I love his movement and he is a very intelligent player, but he is just not productive enough at present.

Think we are sometimes too accepting of, and I'm guilty too, of accepting sub standard players just because they are youth products or they "graft" loads. This is still Manchester United, called a big club, constantly plumping about being big and bold. We should start looking at our squad to reach that level.

Obviously there can't be an overhaul in one summer, but there are a good few players who I'd probably look to move on, even as squad players, you can do better.

That list makes sense to me over the course of maybe this summer and next. Although Januzaj I wouldn't even be name checking, he is just another academy prospect not good enough, blown out of proportion from a rubbish season. I'd add Fellaini on that list also, and Carrick will finish up after this season. I think Mata could well be coming into his last season. He's starting to standout like a sore thumb in our teams "tactics" and while I am a massive fan, and it's just stupidity for me the attack isnt built around him at 10, he is just looking at that right side spot which he isn't good at, all his good stuff is still when he moves across into a central location.

While there are very few incredible squads, Spurs have a great XI and then a poor squad, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, City. Our squad looked much stronger start of last season, MUCH stronger, and we knowingly weakened it in January. But its really miles behind our supposed contemporaries, if we still consider ourselves along the lines of Madrid, Barca and Bayern, which personally I havn't been able to stand over, even for times under Ferguson.

Anyway, on Lingaard, if he can learn to be more productive, setup for goals, score more goals himself, he will not just an incredible squad asset, he will make that RW his own.

Lithium93_

Victor Lindelof having his medical on Wednesday, same day as the fixtures for the 2017/18 season are released.

bucketybuck

DM_7 wrote: »

United have 3 forward spots available in every game with 4 in many home games.

Assuming Mkhitaryan or Mata are for one of them, then United only have Rashford, Lingard and Martial for the other two or three.

Its worth repeating as well that there is definitely room there for a more physical type of player there, somebody that can hold the ball up and provide an aerial threat up front, we really did suffer badly in those areas once Zlatan got injured.

jimmytwotimes 2013

Apologies if already posted. Fantastic game intelligence by Herrera in Europa Final.

https://twitter.com/MirrorFootball/status/874269165498118144

Cantona's Collars

PSG reported to have bid €60 million for Belotti,Torino adamant on the €100 million.

beakerjoe

zerks wrote: »

PSG reported to have bid €60 million for Belotti,Torino adamant on the €100 million.

The can sing for 100 million, he's had 1 great season.

jimmytwotimes 2013

jimmytwotimes 2013 wrote: »

Apologies if already posted. Fantastic game intelligence by Herrera in Europa Final.

https://twitter.com/MirrorFootball/status/874269165498118144

Just the type of player Jose loves, an absolute grafter and is willing to make what could be considered a Captains decision

Trigger

I wonder how much is bull****.. I remember reading something a couple of weeks ago about United buying out Rooneys contract so he might be just taking that and giving it a new angle


https://twitter.com/malachians/status/874290745653383168

The Fabinho has already hit peak muppetry with his partner liking a post on instagram saying something like "come to Man Utd"

Lindelof's contribution from Sweden 2 - 1 France last Friday...

Apparently he did a good job of keeping Griezmann quiet enough also.

Cotts72

astradave wrote: »

I wonder how much is bull****.. I remember reading something a couple of weeks ago about United buying out Rooneys contract so he might be just taking that and giving it a new angle


https://twitter.com/malachians/status/874290745653383168

The Fabinho has already hit peak muppetry with his partner liking a post on instagram saying something like "come to Man Utd"

I'd wait and see, im not a big fan of his anyway,think he speaks out of his arse most of the time anyway like most "ITKs"

jayo26

Cotts72 wrote: »

I'd wait and see, im not a big fan of his anyway,think he speaks out of his arse most of the time anyway like most "ITKs"

The only thing thats worse about a spoofer is a spoofer without a blue tick.

Quandary

Love Herrera - Jose clearly sees the incredible contribution he brings to the team. I'd say if he was told to spend an entire match marking the opposition left back he wouldn't bat an eyelid or say a word. Just gets on with it, puts the team
before himself and getting the win is all he wants at any cost.

Its very hard to find players these days who have such a brilliant attitude both on and off the pitch. The fact that he's such an intelligent player with just the right amount of nasty is the icing on the cake. I'd say he must be a managers dream.

I'm going to stop now because if I continue gushing it will get weird :pac:

JaMarcusHustle

If we sign Fabinho, who plays furthest forward in our midfield then? Pogba has never played there for us or Juve, right?

Jayop

JaMarcusHustle wrote: »

If we sign Fabinho, who plays furthest forward in our midfield then? Pogba has never played there for us or Juve, right?

If we're playing with 1 holding and 2 more forward then that would be similar to where Pogba played for Juve I think.

Trigger

JaMarcusHustle wrote: »

If we sign Fabinho, who plays furthest forward in our midfield then? Pogba has never played there for us or Juve, right?

Herrera has played the role of Fabinho a fair few times and Carrick too, Pogba and Fellaini/herrera(when Carrick plays)were playing as Box to box midfielders, the same way Pogba played for Juve, the problem was Herrera can't really curb his attacking instinct and Carrick is too slow which meant Pogba had to contribute way too much defensively. there is no natural no. 10 in the setup really.

Also if we go 4231 I could see Pogba being played as the no10 and Herrera and Fabinho being like a matic/kante style midfield with one sitting and the other roving

Lord TSC

Griezmann has signed a new contract though no word on if his release clause has raised or not.

Trigger

Griezmann renewing his contract

https://twitter.com/ultrasuristic_/status/874322930913628160

pjohnson

astradave wrote: »

Herrera has played the role of Fabinho a fair few times and Carrick too, Pogba and Fellaini/herrera(when Carrick plays)were playing as Box to box midfielders, the same way Pogba played for Juve, the problem was Herrera can't really curb his attacking instinct and Carrick is too slow which meant Pogba had to contribute way too much defensively. there is no natural no. 10 in the setup really.

Also if we go 4231 I could see Pogba being played as the no10 and Herrera and Fabinho being like a matic/kante style midfield with one sitting and the other roving

Mata and Mkhitaryan are our 10's but I doubt we'll use a 10 if we do get Fabinho. I'd imagine we play his prefered 4-1-2-2-1.


Ok that looks weird, in FM terms I mean

GK
DR
DC
DC
DL
DMC
MC
MC
AMR
AML
ST

Liam McPoyle

astradave wrote: »

Griezmann renewing his contract

https://twitter.com/ultrasuristic_/status/874322930913628160

Rewarding his loyalty, can't say he doesn't deserve it. Refreshing in the world of modern self centred prima donna footballers.

raze_them_all_

Rod Munch wrote: »

Rewarding his loyalty, can't say he doesn't deserve it. Refreshing in the world of modern self centred prima donna footballers.

I wouldnt be keen if i was united now, will increase his price

Trigger

raze_them_all_ wrote: »

I wouldnt be keen if i was united now, will increase his price

By all reports no increase in the release clause but an increase in wage for his loyalty and allowed to leave next year

Billy86

Quandary wrote: »

Love Herrera - Jose clearly sees the incredible contribution he brings to the team. I'd say if he was told to spend an entire match marking the opposition left back he wouldn't bat an eyelid or say a word. Just gets on with it, puts the team
before himself and getting the win is all he wants at any cost.

Its very hard to find players these days who have such a brilliant attitude both on and off the pitch. The fact that he's such an intelligent player with just the right amount of nasty is the icing on the cake. I'd say he must be a managers dream.

I'm going to stop now because if I continue gushing it will get weird :pac:

If our squad was DDG, Romero and 23 Herrera's (tweaked to their positions of course!) this thread would be us defending the title next season. The guy's an absolute champ and really reminds me of the class of 92 (+ Keane) midfielders in his attitude, mentality, intelligence and overall approach. It's been infuriating to wait for, but that christ he's finally an automatic pick in the first XI.

GSPfan

Depending on who we buy this Summer we may not be interested in Griezmann next Summer.