This is not a great squad, and it hasn’t been for a long, long time. Manchester United have a core of young players who have potential, and a few other players who are useful and could be good players for us. The rest are either not good enough, declining, not suitable for how we want to play, or have the wrong attitude/ mentality.
Add to that the physical condition of the squad is not where it needs to be, that forces the manager to either not rotate and get injuries, which ultimately force rotation. Or rotate willingly to avoid injuries, but in doing so is forced to play players who are either not good enough or suitable for our system/ tactics.
This is compounded by a hectic schedule that is severely limiting the amount of time the manager can spend with the players on the training ground to help them understand the tactics/ system he is asking them to play.
While some people are suggesting that it might have been better to muddle through the season with EtH or even Ruud, rather than bring Amorim into this mess. I believe the payoff will come next season once the squad has had longer with the manager and to learn the system. While the manager will also have a better understanding of his squad and therefore be able to be clearer about what he needs from transfer targets to improve us.
Some people think that he would have been better off starting fresh with pre-season to train the players in his style/ system. Yet people forget that the biggest aspect of pre-season is conditioning the players and getting them up to fitness. It’s actually pretty difficult to teach them a new way of playing when they don’t have competitive games to try the new tactics out and learn them.
EtH had a whole pre-season in his first year to teach the players his system / tactics, and it looked good in pre-season. Then competitive games started and we got soundly beaten by Brighton and Brentford and he had to change it up.
We have a lot of issues to sort out, such as:
1. We need attacking wingbacks. We have looked much better with Amad at RWB as opposed to having Mazraoui and Dalot at wingback. It’s the difference between playing with a back five with a isolated front three or a back three and a front five on the front foot. We invite too much pressure when we play fullbacks in both wingback positions.
2. We need more energy in midfield. One of Ugarte and Mainoo must start every single game. Casemiro can play some games but it has to be alongside one of Ugarte and Mainoo, not Eriksen. Who shouldn’t be played in midfield again.
4. We lack quality options for the attacking midfield roles. None of Antony, Rashford or Garnacho are well suited as they play with their head down. Amad should be good in that role, but is needed at RWB. Mount should be good in that role, but can’t stay fit. Leaving Bruno as the only fit, available and well suited player.
Eriksen could play this role, and would be good in it for certain games. But lacks the ability to play it for 90 minutes. Zirkzee has been tried in that role, and he has played it at other clubs. But he just hasn’t adapted to the pace of the EPL. The sooner we can move him on the better.
5. We have a lot of CBs, but most either aren’t good enough or aren’t suited to this system. Lindelof isn’t good enough, and Evans is declining. Maguire looks okay, but isn’t really good enough as anything more than back up. MdL has quietly been very good, but is a little exposed by a lack of quality around him. Yoro looks promising, but is still only 19 with less than 10 EPL appearances under his belt. While Martinez has sadly really struggled. Which is gutting as he has been my favourite player in this squad. He just hasn’t been the same since his injury. He has lost some of his aggression, which he needs to make up for his lack of size and strength. While having to defend the channels isn’t a strength of his. Mazraoui has been surprisingly good at RCB when he’s played there and would be a solid option moving forward.
6. Højlund has been far too isolated at CF, he hardly gets any touches of the ball as we have struggled to play that final ball. He is improving in his build up and link play. Although still a little inconsistent as you’d expect a young players like him to be. The issue is there is literally no one else available to play that role. Zirkzee drops too deep leaving us with no focal point, while Rashford plays with his head down and can’t hold the ball up.
All of these issues can only be fixed by signing new and better players. Maybe one or two could come from the academy, yet it’s hard to introduce youngsters into a team in such poor form. They need quality players around them who can guide them and take some of the pressure off. Giving them room to make mistakes and learn.
We need at least one if not two special-ist attacking wingbacks. We need at least one more physical and energetic midfielder. We need another attacking midfielder who looks to create. While we should also hope to see one of Mount or Amad maybe move into this role as well. We need at least one, probably two CB’s who are physically commanding and quick, who can defend both centrally and in the channels. We need another striker to compete/ rotate with Højlund.
That’s at least 5, ideally 7 players needed just to give us a core of 11-15 players who are either good enough or have the potential to be good enough as well as being suited to play our managers system/ tactics. That doesn’t give us a squad capable of challenging for much more than top 4 at most. We still need another 5 or 6 players on top of that to start to have a squad capable of sustaining a title challenge.
Hopefully, we can get one or two players in during January and that can give us a little kick and we might be able to start getting some better results. A LWB and probably an attacking midfielder I think are the one that’ll make the most difference and be possible in January. Very few teams will listen to offers for top quality CBs, CMs and STs mid-season and will only be prepared to let them go for massively inflated prices.
We also need to think about who we have that we could sell either in January or in the summer to raise funds. If we can sell Rashford in January for a decent fee, that could fund any January signings. Personally I think that is what the club are angling for.
Written by Shappy December 31 2024 18:21:16
