Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 26.09.24

Gossip columns are banging on about Amad being out of contract in the summer and hasn’t agreed a new one yet. Is that true or is it like other situations United have where they can trigger an option to extend the current deal by 1 year?

They have an option of further year. All the noise from amad is he wants to stay at united a long time.

For any of ye not in Ireland or UK tonight..... This is where you can find game locally.

the back 3 is a mess with both Martinez and Shaw out - but then again we could never have counted on Shaw so we need to have a viable alternative to Martinez. I think he will go with Maguire out there - he played there the other day didn't he, with Martinez going to the right side? Might be a hint at that being the option.

I've also wondered if he could look at Dalot as being an option there. No a fan of it, but I think it is maybe a better option than Evans - but then what do you do at LWB in that case. You could look at Garancho there, but I don't think you pick Arsenal away for such an experiment.

So i reckon:

Onana, Mazraoui, De Ligt, Maguire, Amad, Dalot, Ugarte, Bruno, Mount, Rashford, Hojlund.

Which i think is as 'first choice' as we could go tonight, with Martinez and Mainoo out (along with Shaw)

When England were playing 3 at the back, Maguire was on the left side IIRC and getting plenty plaudits for it. His best period for United under Ole was to the left of two.

With Maz on the right and Dalot at LWB it makes the transition from 3 to 4 at the back easy too when required.

There's a lot you can get away with in International football when you one of the big boys

Maguire played there sure, but England are better than 90-95% of teams they play each year. A lot of England games are just going through the motions and getting the win.

Utd won't be that level of dominant and he will be tested to cover space a lot more. We seen Evans struggle to push up and compact the space when he was out there.
Can't see anything but the same for Maguire to be honest

Maguire is at his best as a front foot defender looking to press and nip ahead of the attacker. So if anything I would expect the goal of getting tight will suit him. Its if he gets turned having gone for it that we will see the problems. His worst form at United came when he was mistiming those jumps and getting caught, consistently. You could seem him hesitate, miss, and be punished. if he was to do the same, yes, we'd be effed.

Beyond that… who is your alternative to play there?

Move Mazraoui (and De Ligt?). Would De Ligt be any better in the wider CB role, on either side, than Maguire?
Play Evans?
Put Dalot on one side and Mazraoui the other? (with MDL or Maguire in the centre).

IMO maguire should play LCB tonight because he has played there before, and because I don't see a better alternative. You can say its easier with England etc… but that doesn't help us with Martinez and Shaw both out. We need to play someone there and I don't see an option better than maguire.

IIRC he didn't participate in similar at Bayern either.

Arsenal v ManU is on Premier Sports1

I don’t know what it’s like to be gay or to be Muslim but I struggle to understand why anyone, no matter their religious belief refuses to wear rainbow colours this week. Not understanding, and maybe deliberately not understanding the concept.

As LiamO said, comparing it to the poppy is completely wrong. They are totally different concepts.

No De Ligt I would see the same, needs to be the CCB.

On who should play there tonight? Yoro is in the squad but yeah options are limited.
I'm not 100% if throwing him in here is the right call or not

Don't want to crucify the young lad but he has come in highly rated and we need to start seeing what he can do.
Providing he himself is 100% fit

I just have very little interest in seeing Maguire running back towards his own goal struggling to keep up with Saka

Don't get me wrong, its not something I am desperate for, I just don't see that we have a choice.

I think long terms the likely plan is that Yoro and Mazraoui will share time at RCB, with Mazraoui possibly playing wing back too.

But I also think we could see Yoro RCB and Mazraoui as LCB.

I just don't think tonight we will start Yoro without a previous minute of game time in the last 4 months, so our options for the back 3 tonight are (i think) Mazraoui, De Ligt, Maguire, Evans - with Martinez, Shaw, Lindelof all out and Yoro (imo) highly unlikely to start.

from the 4 I reckon are possible, I think Maguire is above Evans, and then I'd play him LCB before I would play De Ligt there. Plus on that side i think we will have Dalot, which would hopefully help while at RCB they'd have Amad ahead of them which will make defending a bit harder.

I do wonder if we would play Mazraoui on the left side though, to double up with Dalot vs Saka. But then the ball progression on the right will suffer.

No easy/good call imo.