Its official - The club have announced: "Manchester United are delighted to announce it has reached agreement with Sporting Clube de Portugal for the transfer of Bruno Fernandes. "The deal is subject to a medical and the agreement of personal terms. A further announcement will be made in due course."
He looks a decent signing. Goal scoring record is great for a midfielder, does he play centrally, prefer left or right? Get Pogba back alongside him and Fred and we're ok in midfield, with McTominay to come as well and Matic as a lumbering occasional back up. Ideally, James in the left till Rashford is back and Dalot in the right in front of AWB. Which leaves Martial as striker. Ole wasn't to know Rashford would get I injured but wouldn't Zlatan be a great addition and cover to the end of the season right now? We've not a bad team when everyone is fit, it's just those injuries are at absolutely crucial positions.
He's a number 10 Chief. Some have compared his style to Lampard because of the goals but others have said he's more than that. He considers himself a playmaker and a passer of the ball - just what we need in all aspects tbf. Good shout for Ibrah. I've got no idea if Sanchez is playing or how he's doing abroad, but would it be worth bringing him back as an option? I know he's not been great in the past but maybe with the more recent additions United might see some goals from him.
Agree on Sanchez, he may as well be with us as Inter. It makes no sense him being there. Solves a problem on the right! He'd have to play there though, nowhere else. Fernandes with Pogba(or Fred) and McTominay is not too shabby a midfield. Front three of James(Rashford when fit again) Martial and Sanchez. The defence is decent, still not a fan of Lindelof or Shaw and, long term, both need to be upgraded, but with Smalling (you'd hope), Williams, Tuanzebe and Jones in reserves it's still not disastrous. Not top 2 yet but certainly top four material.
Why are we linked with Joshua King? I don't get it - if we want a real striker. Greenwood has better record in front of goal.
I think we have a shedload of XL size shirts left over from when Lukaku left - Woodward didn't want to have to bin them.
We have now spent £200m in seven months with absolutely nothing to show for it. Just how much more do we need to spend to show value? By the time we buy a decent striker and a right winger, we will be over £300m. And Kalidou is also being mentioned for £90m move. Forget £300m, we will be close to £400m by the end of summer. The bore draw with Wolves was disappointing on too many levels: 1. Rashford is injured and we still can't start Greenwood. 2. Why were we playing 4-5-1 at home against a team like Wolves? No disrespect, but GOODNESS! 3. Why is Shaw now preferred to Williams? 4. A bore game was being played, and we waited until 88th minute to make additional two changes which included Dalot who should have come on after the first half of useless passing and p!$$ing around in the midfield. 5. Lastly, Chelsea had dropped points yet again before our match and we did not adjust the team to capitalize, show attacking intent and we eventually played out a game that felt like a friendly match.. points #1 and #2. I am trying terribly hard to not point fingers at the obvious with this post. But I will persist with the message, and that is - more time devoted to a non-strategist is sure as hell not going to yield better and consistent results, nor is simply throwing money around with the aim of replacing almost all of the first team. The sooner this is acknowledged, the better the chance of getting this very expensive team to start playing football for results. Rant over!
Is he there to provide the assists? How many assists did Gary Nev provide in 15 years? In a 0-0 draw at home with 65% possession I don’t think the focus should be on the lack of creativity of the full backs (the other one goes to pieces in the final third). Even if they get forward and get a cross into the box the chances are that it won’t lead to a goal as we play without a striker more often than not. If anyone is still perplexed as to why we’ve signed a relatively unknown striker to plug a hole for the rest of the season then yesterday should have given them some insight.
I think Wan Bissaka hasn't had an outlet in midfield, so he has had no option but the try for the cross/corner. With Fernandes providing a creative outlet - as opposed to Pereira or Lingard, he should be able to release the ball earlier into a more productive area of the pitch. The same applies for Shaw who has also resorted to a hefty 'hit and hope' ball into the box with no real target in mind.
Gary Neville is a bad example to his legendary credit. Why? Because he was always getting crosses into the box and involved in attack through link up play by overlapping with the winger. Since you brought it up, I had to check and he had 35 assists in 400 games. That is one assist every 11 games and with a handful of goals in there as well. But I do agree that you've pointed out, and that is we lack flexible tactical capability to breakdown any organized side that is willing to defend. It has been the pattern all season. Possession means jack if you can't score and that's exactly how teams are setup against us, especially at OT. Even if we buy a striker of Haarland's quality, he wouldn't have scored in yesterday's match with our approach to the game. And that's the ultimate flaw with the team.
S One of the commentators (could have been match of the day but think it was radio) said that Wan Bissaka 'doesn't have a trick'. He's the right back. He's there to defend. Why should he (or Shaw) have a ****ing trick?
He is great at defending. But he, like the rest of team, needs to improve on his link up play. I think of Neville, Irwin, Evra etc, they all had tremendous impact on how we overwhelmed teams, especially at OT. Same with defending, it should start from the front.