Keane and Evans CB pairing

Everton's defense is below average and actually worse than United.

Evans is good but people here would go mad at the number of times he plays forwards onside because he can't keep in line with his defenders.
 
Idxomer said:
Everton's defense is below average and actually worse than United.

Evans is good but people here would go mad at the number of times he plays forwards onside because he can't keep in line with his defenders.
Click to expand...

They dont have Shaw and AWB helping them both defend and attack.

Everton play Godfrey and Holgate at the fullback positions when they want to defend which leaves them nothing in attack. And Digne and Coleman when they want to attack, which is a lot worse defensively than Shaw and AWB. Holgate and Godfrey have only been used in fullback positions 8-9 times each though so most of the time Everton's CBs are defending without much help from the fullbacks.

Allan helps in front of the defence when available.

Their CBs are better than Lindelof
 
They weren’t good enough. Don't let our current woes distract from that fact - Evans is a solid CB but he was never the level we needed and wasn’t particularly fast.
Smalling is the one who on paper would complement Maguire the most but Ole wanted more of a technical CB.
 
Nah not Evans he was given enough chances , I don’t know why we didn’t include a buyback in Keane though. He’s better than Lindelof
 
Keane is only good on set pieces (which to be fair we struggle with) but the rest of his game is average. Evans is a good player but had a downturn at the wrong time and got Van Gaaled.
 
Whoever said they would be better than Maguire-Lindelof definitely hasn’t got a clue.
 
Zoo said:
Keane is only good on set pieces (which to be fair we struggle with) but the rest of his game is average. Evans is a good player but had a downturn at the wrong time and got Van Gaaled.
Click to expand...
Regarding Evans, Van gal did give him a good amount of playing time as far as I remember. He had some errors occasionally or that's what you would think when you read about him here back then.

And, the spitting incident I think kind of sealed his fate and was sold not too long after. Not to mentioned, I think he had a fair share of injury issues.
 
RashyForPM said:
Yeah, a better pairing than Maguire-Lindelof (worse than Maguire-Bailly though), but nowhere near top class.
Click to expand...

No way are they a better pairing than Maguire-Lindelof. Maybe Michael Keane is better than Viktor Lindelof (although that's far from clear-cut), but Evans is inferior to any of the other 3, and Maguire a class above any of the other 3.
 
People honestly suggesting Keane is better than Lindelof??

I want whatever they're smoking as it must be some pretty strong stuff!
 
Evans was pretty terrible here for long periods, especially towards the end, prone to regular brain farts and regularly injured. Fans were fairly happy to see him go. The rewriting of history because he had a couple of good spells at clubs where there's a lot less pressure to perform is ridiculous. Keane was sold for good reason too.

Though I realise the actual ability of these players is fairly immaterial to the discussion, its more about the excuse to insult the players who do play for us
 
Last edited:
The underrating of Lindelöf on here is ridiculous. Michael Keane is better? Really? Maybe slightly better at heading/aerial duels, with Victor being better at literally everything else.
 
RashyForPM said:
Yeah, a better pairing than Maguire-Lindelof (worse than Maguire-Bailly though), but nowhere near top class.
Click to expand...
No they are not. Not even close.

Keane couldn’t get into the first team and Evans was decent but was ultimately sold in preference for Smalling and Jones which tells you all you need to know.
 
How can we rank them as a pairing when one plays for Everton and the other Leicester? individually, Evans never should have left, but that's another story or former poor managers. Not sure Keane would ever be good enough to be more than 4th or 5th choice...
 
Sometimes players are suited to different environments. Memphis and Lingard are another couple of examples of this.
 
justsomebloke said:
No way are they a better pairing than Maguire-Lindelof. Maybe Michael Keane is better than Viktor Lindelof (although that's far from clear-cut), but Evans is inferior to any of the other 3, and Maguire a class above any of the other 3.
Click to expand...

Evans worse than Keane or Lindelof??? Odd take.

If you'd said that Evans would be a poor partner for Maguire (who I agree is the best of the 4) then that'd make sense but for me he's in a vacuum pretty clearly better than Lindelof or Keane.
 
Evans is a brilliant centre back to watch. I am not really sure what "top class" means but he has definitely been one of the better centre halves in the league for the majority of his career. Was obviously a mistake to sell him for basically nothing. Van Gaal doing Van Gaal things.

Michael Keane has probably had as many good seasons as he has had crap ones.
 
I would like it to be known that in no way was I saying they were better than what we have, I was legitimately asking to what level they could be a CB pairing. Was a silly question, but a question nevertheless.
 
Not as bad as is made out here. He had 1 good season at Burnley and 1 at Everton

356349147d97d1188aa1070df0a1a631.png


Average on the ball, good in the air and clearing the box, not very aggressive with his ball winning plus just the 1 season where he was a real threat from set pieces scoring 3 goals in the premier league

Standard pretty good CB for the premier league like Gary Cahill but not as good.
 
Just putting it out, than Evans and Maguire obviously played together for us. Evans was the better defender of the pair, however Maguire had more upside, largely due to his age.

The issue with Evans, which I’m sure will have been the case at yourselves, is whilst he can be a solid player, he has this habit of doing stupid stuff and costing goals or getting himself suspended. As a player, he’s an all round fairly solid and reliable. I’d personally rate him 3rd of centre backs now, however he most likely plays due to the other two being less experienced.
 
vodrake said:
Evans was pretty terrible here for long periods, especially towards the end, prone to regular brain farts and regularly injured. Fans were fairly happy to see him go. The rewriting of history because he had a couple of good spells at clubs where there's a lot less pressure to perform is ridiculous. Keane was sold for good reason too.

Though I realise the actual ability of these players is fairly immaterial to the discussion, its more about the excuse to insult the players who do play for us
Click to expand...

The lack of confidence was so telling near the end, especially in light of how he originally came into the team as a young player and showed composure and a real quiet confidence when having to play when one of Rio or Vidic was injured. I guess it helped having a world class CB, LB and GK with years of experience all around him, but the contrast was stark. It was also interesting to look back and think that a lot of people rated Evans over Pique when Evans was at Sunderland.

I think one of his last games for United was against Tottenham at White Heart Lane. He was not great all around but I was amazed how he seemed to have lost all ability to make a pass, especially considering that has always been one of the better parts of his game. His confidence was shot and I think he probably needed to start over somewhere else
 
justsomebloke said:
No way are they a better pairing than Maguire-Lindelof. Maybe Michael Keane is better than Viktor Lindelof (although that's far from clear-cut), but Evans is inferior to any of the other 3, and Maguire a class above any of the other 3.
Click to expand...
Plant0x84 said:
No they are not. Not even close.

Keane couldn’t get into the first team and Evans was decent but was ultimately sold in preference for Smalling and Jones which tells you all you need to know.
Click to expand...
Come on lads, I wrote that 2 months ago off the back off us drawing against Everton and WBA, while Leicester were only 1 point behind us and Keane just played a masterclass when Everton beat Pool. Cut me some slack will you :lol:

Honestly, I also think Maguire-Lindelof is a better partnership than Maguire-Bailly now too, and that’s because they improved massively in the 2 months since I wrote that post.
 
Hindsight is a beautiful thing.

but under LVG, keeping Evans, Keane as squad players and adding VanDijk who in his (LVGs) first summer went to Southampton for 13M would have been brilliant.

we don’t then spend circa 100M on Blind, Rojo, Bailly, Lindelof and that money is used elsewhere.

Too easy to reflect though on what could have been.
 
Keane doesn’t belong in the same conversation with Evans. He’s brilliant in air, but other than that, he’s way too shaky to be ”top class”.

Evans on the other hand we should’ve kept, but if he was here, he’d get the same (social) media abuse all our players get for the smallest run of bad form. But I think he is (and always was) good enough to play a part in a top4 level team.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
Evans worse than Keane or Lindelof??? Odd take.

If you'd said that Evans would be a poor partner for Maguire (who I agree is the best of the 4) then that'd make sense but for me he's in a vacuum pretty clearly better than Lindelof or Keane.
Click to expand...

I'd actually put it the other way around. If anything would be an argument for Evans at Utd right now, it's his proven ability to partner Maguire, which he did at Leicester and did well. But no, at this point in time, I don't think he's a better defender than Lindelof or Keane from what I see. But of course, impressions are fallible and my expertise limited, I may well be wrong.
 
What is this crap about Keane and Lindelof? Neither are good enough to be a starting CB for Utd. Selling Evans was an feck up of epic proportions. Was our best CB at the time and left us with a injured Jones, Smalling who at that time was always injured and Blind. Even is a very solid PL CB and was sold for peanuts. LVG truly was an inspiration.
 
TheMagicFoolBus said:
Evans worse than Keane or Lindelof??? Odd take.

If you'd said that Evans would be a poor partner for Maguire (who I agree is the best of the 4) then that'd make sense but for me he's in a vacuum pretty clearly better than Lindelof or Keane.
Click to expand...

Evans isn't better than Lindelof. We have to replace Lindelof but still he is better than Evans.

Would take the Evans who played for ManUtd alongside Vidic/Rio over Lindelof, not this Evans.
 
Donut said:
They’re both probably better than Lindelof and would improve us, Smalling as well.
Click to expand...

:lol:

I swear, ten years after Smalling has retired there will be lads on here speaking about him in hushed tones alongside defenders like Baresi and Beckenbauer.
 
Evans is still very good. Not top class but there's not many CBs that are these days. He suffers playing in Rodgers' suicide line I think sometimes but that's fairly normal for a 33 year old in my book.

Keane on the other hand is just fairly average. Probably better at defending set pieces and crosses than Lindelof and Maguire but he's not particularly good on the deck with or without the ball, and he's also quite slow. Not to say he couldn't have been a better (free) option as a squad player compared to e.g. Rojo but I certainly don't mourn his loss at all.
 
diarm said:
:lol:

I swear, ten years after Smalling has retired there will be lads on here speaking about him in hushed tones alongside defenders like Baresi and Beckenbauer.
Click to expand...

So you think the only defenders better than Lindelof are Barsei and Beckenbauer. Wow
 
diarm said:
:lol:

I swear, ten years after Smalling has retired there will be lads on here speaking about him in hushed tones alongside defenders like Baresi and Beckenbauer.
Click to expand...

He had the right attributes to form a good partnership with Maguire, but Ole did the right thing moving him on looking at it long term given his age etc. Does frustrate me he left and certain other centre backs are still with us though.
 
Ekeke said:
So you think the only defenders better than Lindelof are Barsei and Beckenbauer. Wow
Click to expand...

More that I think the only defenders worse than Smalling were Titus Bramble and my mate Steve with the gammy leg.
 
Evans was never strong enough here. He would get bullied more than our other defenders
 
arthurka said:
Selling Evans was an feck up of epic proportions. Was our best CB at the time and left us with a injured Jones, Smalling who at that time was always injured and Blind.
Click to expand...

He was as injury prone as jones and was also making a lot of mistakes. The Evans situation is similar to that of Jesse where everyone has forgotten what they served up in their last year or so as Manchester united players.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.