Seems like we have to go back to Jones and Smalling, with Matic in front of them.
Bailly and Lindelof
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Blind has left United silly billy
I think you might be right.
On the bolded bit - that truly would be hilarious, if it wasn't so appalling! Who would have thought
Being a bit pedantic now, but on the sums of money, I think those 5 cost closer to 100m, not 200.
Think about it logically
He plays our most inexperienced cb pairing. In front of them an experimental DM alongside a new CM who has played 1 game in England. On the flanks a winger at RB who played all last season at LB and at LB a young lad who is so derided by all that he is trying to play back into form and in fact only his 2nd game in a row since January. No wonder we got hammered by Brighton, it was madness. Smalling should have started for experience alone
Even as one of his big defenders I agree his selection was truly baffling. He's done himself no favours.
That's hindsight which would not have been noticed had the wobbles not crept into our defence. Everything became a shambles on the back of the defensive showing the whole deck of cards rests on a solid defence. Especially for our team!
Well they are our best centre backs, by a country mile.
Most people were in agreement with the lineup pre game it was largely rejoicing if anything?
Given how Jose has preferred them since Lindelof and Bailly arrived I'm guessing he largely agrees.
I agree it’s hindsight on my part but he’s paid to think about these things. It was poor
On the bolded bit - that truly would be hilarious, if it wasn't so appalling! Who would have thought
Being a bit pedantic now, but on the sums of money, I think those 5 cost closer to 100m, not 200.
Won’t even be £100m I think. Bailly was around £25m, Lindelof around £31m, Blind and Darmian were both around £12m but one was sold at a profit and Rojo was £15m. That adds up to around £97m with £15m or so received back for the sale of Blind.
We have bought too many players instead of buying the right players. During this time we could have got someone like Umtiti who would have solved half our issues.
I haven’t given up hope for Bailly and Lindelof but it’s getting worse with time.
Don't know what happened, last week they were good! Getting our hopes up...and now this performance? Night and day difference.
Pretty much anyone that watches us should agree. It was really weird last season and this summer that half this forum didn't realise how terrible Bailly was last season when he wasn't injured. It was even weirder that Smalling and Jones were the first names to go when people created threads about selling centre backs. They may not be great defenders but they're for damn sure better than Rojo, Lindelof, and Bailly.
Hey brother! How are you?
Yeah agreed. Just from what I recall us paying for those 5, i remember it not being that expensive. But as you mentioned, we've stacked ourselves with too many mediocre players, and none of them excellent. And the punts we took on "potential" (Bailly/Lindelof) isn't quite developing as we had hoped it would.
It was a gamble but come on he may have thought about it and thought on the back of the Leicester game they need to be given another test. Very difficult to predict those mistakes even after 20 mins? He'll bring one out for spurs but as I said when we were sniffing around CBs and didn't get one, injuries will prob come back to haunt us now....Smalling and Jones injuries forcing us to play these 2 for an extended time would be sods law for us hey! I think come Jan we'll try again for Toby or maguire...
That's why it's fairly easy to spot the issue. The difference between Brighton and Leicester is that our midfield was able to move the ball around, it was sterile but we were able to move it anyway. Against Brighton the midfield was losing the ball in dangerous areas on every other possessions which is an absolute nightmare for any defense whether it's made of Bailly-Lindelof or Maldini-Nesta. Every defense that has to cope with waves of turnovers will struggle.
I realised yesterday, among the obvious things, just how bad both are at heading the ball. By that I don't mean actually making contact with their head, but actually using awareness and timing their jumps to direct headers or clearances into places on the pitch with less danger. A lot of times, the ball goes straight up in the air and puts us under way more pressure.
I agree they ain't great but currently a level above the new recruits. They had a far better bedding in period mind at the club and they are old hats now. Give the new ones a few years to try and fulfil their potential. Jose did right to say nothing about the mistakes. They will appreciate that even if as many suggest its orders from above who cares. The order to above was buy more defenders and we should have and let others go. We will only act one day anyway only months after when action was needed!
I can't speak for others but I shuddered seeing Lindelof particularly on the team sheet. He wasn't convincing against Leicester. Didn't want to see Mata on the right either.
I’m good, thanks! You?
It hurts that over last three years we took a punt on Lindelöf and Bailly but could have got van Dijk, Umtiti, Romagnoli, Sanchez or Rugani for similar fees.
At full back we have also made so many mistakes. The worst thing is that some of the obvious targets in our positions of need have actually gone to our rivals - mainly City but also Liverpool. Silva (Bernardo), Sane, Laporte, Mendy, Salah, Mane, van Dijk are just a few players we could have gone for and it’s not even a hindsight that makes them more sensible targets than someone like Lindelöf.
Lingard will take up the right attacking position in the next game.
ok it's easy to pick holes now but even then no one including Jose could predict the bejeebies would hit our defenders and infect every single player bar Shaw who I think was ok and Felliani who was our best player by a mile on the day. Prob coming off a bejeebie free bench helped him stay immune.
Smalling was fit. Considering Murray bullied lindelof so badly last year and matic wasn’t playing yesterday to help, it baffles me how smalling was left out yesterday. He wasn’t at the WC, he’s fresh and got a point to prove
On the bolded bit - that truly would be hilarious, if it wasn't so appalling! Who would have thought
Being a bit pedantic now, but on the sums of money, I think those 5 cost closer to 100m, not 200.
Yeah you're right. Exaggerated a little bit but I was fuming yesterday.
I’ve been shouting that all summer, I’m sure the threads are kicking around. Neither of them are good at heading which should be a prerequisite for the position!
There is no point Jose suggesting players from here. He's not trusted. I doubt he'll ever be asked and I doubt he'd ever write another list. We might as well decide as a club who is good at judging players and go with them. Personally I don't agree with that route but it works for enough clubs these days to suggest there is no perfect answer to recruitment. VVD was an obvious but then again a lot on here didn't rate him. Toby is another one. Maguire is better than Lindelof and Bailly as well. It's going to take a lot more ££ especially in Jan when we are known to be desperate! We could be fighting with spurs for 4th.
Both of them brought piss to a shit fight yesterday.
I'm well man, thank you. Just work that's a bit stressful at the moment...but we'll get there.
Yeah I agree. It's all very weird as well. I mean, as you mentioned, we're (well most of us anyway!) all armchair critics and not many of us have much professional level experience in football - either as players, managers or even on running a football club - let alone a club the size of United. But it's all very confusing when the majority of the Caf can agree on what our team needs (or who the deadwood is, which need to be shipped out asap!), or even identify players (talented or proven) which might improve us. But time and again, we're either not interested (seemingly anyway!) and we allow most of our rivals a free pass on some of these players.
It's just all weird. Or maybe we're not as clueless - (compared to some of the higher powers running our club!) as I think we are.
Aye, I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing, but I'm sort of getting numb to these performances or results.
It looks like a Jose point proving exercise. He obviously preferred Smalling and Jones all last season. A crap transfer window where he's forced to stick with the new recruits which may or may not have been his first choices......I'm clutching here but would anyone look at Lindelof and say "jose CB".....I wouldnt say that in a million years. What I will say which concerned me yesterday....we were playing out from the back....why? That looks like a Moyes move "this week we need to cross more as everyone is".....I've never seen Jose introduce something like that....what next...pressing opposing full backs? I found it very odd and I noticed it within 5 mins. Was that new instruction an added pressure...
Yeah, it's a very good point. I think it's usually been compensated for before as typically Smalling or Jones (who for all their faults are actually pretty strong in the air) would play alongside one of the pair. It goes along with what Gary Neville said yesterday about most of our CBs looking like the one happy just to play second fiddle alongside a more dominant one.
Sometimes you need to take a step back and look at where we came from. Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic. How far have we fallen from those heights?!
Bailly and Lindelof are young enough that it’s just about possible they might become world class CBs. I know I’m in a tiny minority but I think this is more likely with Lindelof than Bailly. Looking at our CB options overall, how good do people think they are relative to the teams we’re up against? Feels like a fecking lifetime ago when I was 100% confident our defence was better than any team we faced. Now I’m not even confident against Brighton or Leicester! Honestly. Does anyone think that the result would have been a lot worse yesterday if we swapped our CBs with Brighton’s?
(And that’s not even getting into how our full-backs compare with someone like Patrice Evra)
Bailly and Lindelof are young enough that it’s just about possible they might become world class CBs. I know I’m in a tiny minority but I think this is more likely with Lindelof than Bailly. Looking at our CB options overall, how good do people think they are relative to the teams we’re up against? Feels like a fecking lifetime ago when I was 100% confident our defence was better than any team we faced. Now I’m not even confident against Brighton or Leicester! Honestly. Does anyone think that the result would have been a lot worse yesterday if we swapped our CBs with Brighton’s?
(And that’s not even getting into how our full-backs compare with someone like Patrice Evra)
They need time to learn as a partnership, we either have to play them and suffer the incosistencies or drop them for Smalling and Jones (!). They aren't going to improve sat on the bench, and thats the danger with cutting corners to save money on tranfer fees.
Think Bailly is one of the most overrated players on here, but that’s probably going to change as the season goes on. He need a lot of work. Without a doubt he’d benefit massively from having a calming influence beside him. He’s ridiculously raw and an accident waiting to happen every game.
I'd just about agree. When I think about Bailly it's not about how good he might be, it's about how bad he might be. With the other fella I just find him so average in all areas that he just kind of fades from my mind.
Oh yes definately. Our team was shell shocked.
Also worryingly before Brighton even scored they seemed to dominate our midfield. Neville also eluded to it, mentioning Fred Peirrera and Pogba on paper compliment each other very well and you'd expect them to dominate the middle and didn't.
This is sort of where I worry about the managers training methods.
I think if you keep sitting him down and coaching him on the back of videos which I imagine will be the process of not lunging in etc they both have raw qualities. We can't throw them under a bus and we haven't. Take them out or one out and work on them both in the long term whilst we look at Jan new recruits for the immediate term. If Toby doesn't sign on for spurs I imagine he'll be the one.
You cant just throw 3 midfielders together and expect them to click straight away thats going to take weeks/months with hiccups along the way. One is a kid with no real experience of the position or playing it against PL opposition. People keep saying its Brighton for f*ck sake which is a joke. The margin between them and us if we are not on our game is small. As it is for anyone not doing the basics. They've been doing it now for over a season to teams just like us.
They don't really complement each other well though. Andreas is a deep lying playmaker, not a DM, so he needs those around him to put in a shift and help in the battle. Pogba offers nothing off the ball and does no defending and Fred is diminutive and not exactly a defensive workhorse either. There isn't a single one in there who is going to put in a proper shift defensively or physically dominate a midfield battle. Ander would complement them far more. Its the type of midfield you'd expect to see at Arsenal.