General Premier League Thread 2024-25

Still to have the morning Coffee 8-10?

They are taking the piss out of Real picking up this guy

The faces say it all 🤣

When Martinez is fit and on the pitch he is one of Utd's best players.
He's by far the most comfortable defender receiving a pass under pressure and he is by far our best passer from defence into midfield.

He also has has major injury issues and it is currently up in the air if we will ever get him back on the pitch at his pre-injury level.

If he doesn't come back, it doesn't change the fact that he was top quality beforehand.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to rival fans trying to get a dig in at the player.
Ignorance is plentiful in football

One of the greatest ever unveilings.

We've had this discussion… See post #2681 in this thread

"Right…. but he also played in 5 out of the 7 games at the World Cup 2022

5 out 6 in the copa 24

and 3 out of 4 in World cup qualification

So to answer your question in a much more clear and straightforward way

YES HE START FOR ARGENTINA FAIRLY OFTEN. He had moved to Utd just 3 months before the World Cup so they obviously went with Otamendi as a player who had played to get them there and had the experience of football at the highest level but Martinez still played in 5 out of the 7 games."

Romero and Otomendi were established as their CB pairing before the WC22. It was a manager sticking with the players who got them there.

Martinez still played the vast majority of games despite coming into the squad later.

Pep who moved 5ft 8 Mascherano back to CB?

Same height as Franco Baresi

Martinez's height doesn't really matter, and it only affects his ability to win headers in the air and/or be outmuscled by big physical CFs, which aren't too prevalent these days. Across the last 12 months of all CBs in the top 5 leagues, Martinez ranks in the 8th percentile (100 being the best) for aerial duels won. He doesn't really compete in the air, and when he does, doesn't have a good win percentage.

He likes to push up and commit to a tackle higher up the pitch or to make an interception (one of the best in top 5 leagues in that metric). While this is a good characteristic to have in certain set ups, and he is good at it to be fair, it must be caveated with that he can also be quite rash and dive in a lot, leaving him out of position if it doesn't come off. It looks great when he wins the ball up high and can start a counter attack, and it is very efficient, but if he doesn't win the ball, it leaves the whole team exposed with lots of empty space behind him. He commits a lot of fouls through this method also, and is also gets booked a lot compared to other CBs.

When coming up against an attacker 1v1 in a dribble, he basically doesn't have much success, generally allows the attacker to get his shot at goal and is very low in terms of actually winning a challenge. He commits a few errors too.

There is no metric for being caught out of position, but I would anticipate that he would be very much in the red there.

Great passer, and ball carrier. Poor defender. Sounds like someone else mentioned a lot in this thread and is leaving the league in a few weeks time.

Cool, the manager stayed loyal to the players who got them to the WC.
Now do the same for the Copa America?

Is that VVDs worst season when he was recovering from the ACL?

that was 21/22 wasn't it? 21/22 he playedd 34 pl games, 22/23 he played 32 pl games (played 5 iin 20/21 so assumed that is the iinjury year)

IMO Martinez looked fantastic most of his debut season. but started his second season ropey, improved, got injured again. This season he starte ropey, looked to be getting into a groove, then got injured.

He looked like he could be great, but we have never seen it for a long enough time period to really talk about him - and at this point i'd be shocked if he was able to become first choice at United again, i reckon the injuries will have destroyed him

Oh I don't mind what the comparison is I was just asking if it was VVDs really bad year when he came back after the ACL injury but Mitch cleared it up above.

Apologies if it came across as me being an ass.

Martinez was the more aggressive CB and Varane the one to clear up behind.
Varane was an excellent partner to him when both were fit to be fair.

Maguire, Lindelof etc.. obviously can't do the same job Varane could.

there was a lovely few months where Varane, Martinez and Casemiro made a wonderful triangle of protection in front of the box and it looked great.

Then we played Liverpool.

Final day relegation battle from 20 years ago, beats the Champions League places battle for excitement anyday.

Mikel Arteta, ex-Real Sociedad centre midfielder, signs 2nd Real Sociedad centre midfielder in past year

Last one was even called Mikel